Midnight Sun

[Todd]

Hello Cosminescu, welcome to the site! Merry belated Christmas to you too. I get the gist of your caveats. I'll try not to use fancy lingo to describe what I mean. Here are some comments for you:

Greetings and Merry Christmas! This be my first time on this forum. Reason why I joined is rather simple. When I was a kid I used to write poems, and later in life at school I was told to have an interesting imagination. I've never really cared much of what was said but finally few days ago I decided to give it another go. Last time I sat down to read poems was when I was 10-11ish. I am not an active reader/writer so please criticize my poems in an understandable way for me due to my lack of knowledge/skill. Also keep in mind that English is not my native language. I've learned it from school, tv and the internet. Here goes!


There are times throughout the poem when your rhyme seems to work and times when it feels a bit forced. I'd suggest reading the poem out loud and listening for those times when it seems to clunk. Line 2 and Line 4 for example have those sort of clunks for me as I read it. While I have no issues with rhyme, when I read this I felt at times you allowed the content to be lessened for the sake of matching up a rhyming word.

Memories glance upon my eyes

This is an interesting line in that the memories are doing the glancing and it gives the sense that you're seeing events unfold in your mind's eye. I think these are the lines that become the building blocks for our poetry.

I know people have mentioned cliches. I think I'd express it this way. Think of cliches (now I'm really dating myself) as the old mix tapes people used to make for one another before cds. They start out sounding good but a cliche is like making a copy of the copy, and then making a copy from the next copy...and on and on. They steal the power from the words. They're mostly something to avoid for that reason. What you're looking for is fresh original language.

More than cliches though what I think you're actually dealing with is abstractions. When you say it hurts like hell that's a cliche, but when you say this pain of mine that's an abstraction. It's not that you should never use abstractions it's just if you don't ground them with imagery (I'll explain) they are too vague--again causing the writing to lack power.

So for example when you say, "this pain of mine" think about an image that can express the pain. What pictures can you use to show the reader the intensity and type of pain.

Bill was in a rage (abstraction)

Bill drove his fists through the drywall until his hands were a mixture of plaster and blood (concrete image)

I would encourage you to look for ways to show us more of what's going on rather than just telling us about an abstract pain or emotion.

The days pass, nights as well
I'm hopeless and it hurts like hell
I wish it'd stop, this pain of mine
So the sun once more, on my soul shall shine.--again can you feel where the line sort of clunks. It's too long to accommodate the rhythm. This is a longer discussion on meter

It's hard to think, it's hard to know
What I should do, for I love you so
The more I try, the more I hurt--you sort of fix the abstraction of hurt here with the next line (more of this in the poem). By the way, I like the idea of this line. It may actually be the basis for a rewrite around this idea more fully.. It's a true to life fact of relationships. I liked it.
My knees so weak, I hit the dirt.

The darkness scatters my thoughts away--another place where you could put imagery. My thoughts scatter like a flock of crows (which gives a sense of darkness but is more visual...just showing you that you're already hinting at the imagery just need to go a little bit further)


As I open my eyes I look around
I see a shadow, I hear a sound--sound is vague. Again go for specificity when possible


I'll stand my ground, I will not run
As my end approaches, my soul undone
I mumble a prayer, not two but one
That you should be my midnight sun.--these last four lines aren't bad. They read pretty well.

I think you could develop this. I hope the comments will be helpful to you. Let me know if anything was unclear.

Again, welcome to the site.

Todd